From the day's First Reading:
"Tend the flock of God in your midst, overseeing not by constraint, but willingly...Do not lord it over those assigned to you, but be an example to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd is revealed, you will receive the unfading crown of glory."
It doesn't get much clearer than that, does it? There is no question for those of us who live in families which flock of God we're to tend. The question needing to be answered is a matter of the heart. What keeps us from tending our flock willingly? What makes us irritable, short-tempered, and overwhelmed? What makes us want to run away from it all for a few hours or day or....What prevents us from being an example to our flock? In my experience, when I find myself fussing, pointing my finger, and honing in on my family's shortcomings, it's usually because I'm feeling the sting of my own faults rather acutely. What brings on those episodes in your life? Lent is a time to remove the blocks in our lives that keep us from following God with our whole hearts. God's will for us and our path to heaven are to tend the flock of our family willingly and eagerly. What is in our way? There's still enough Lent left to get rid of it.
For me right now, the answer is STUFF. We've got to get a handle on the things in this home that are crowding our time, our space, our thoughts, and our hearts. When we were serving in foreign mission, it was quite obvious that stuff was a detriment to following the will of God. You definitely cannot get on a plane and go where God calls if you've got too much stuff. In those days, everything I owned fit into a few rubbermaid bins and four large duffel bags. Now clearly, managing a life here and keeping a home asks something a bit different of me, but over time, I have forgotten the point of one of the most important lessons learned by our missionary service: stuff gets in the way of our saying yes to God.
In my home, stuff is not a problem because I can't pack it all and get it on the plane, but because I can't organize it all and still tend my flock well. If in order to keep any semblance of peace in my home, I have to huff around scooping up stuff and rearranging it constantly, stuff is in the way of God's will. If the thought of having morning prayer with my kids or snuggling on the couch for read-alouds panics me because the mess in the living room robs me of my desire to serve my family, stuff is in the way of my service to God.
Over and over I have talked myself out of this being the problem. Over and over I have reasoned that I just needed more containers and bookshelves (stuff for my stuff). And over and over I have found myself lying in bed at night feeling like a total failure because of the state of my stuff. Even on a day when we have prayed together, learned together, played together, I can often find myself guilt-ridden at night because I was not able to manage my home as I think I should. If stuff is in the way of my experiencing God's love and mercy, it's definitely the problem.
I am giving up lying to myself about that for the rest of Lent. I am facing my stumbling block dead on. I am going to follow a plan to determine the purpose of each room of our home, find a place for the things we need to achieve that purpose, and eliminate the rest. I am going to work on forming better habits for myself, then lead my little flock by example.
And I am going to tend them, their hearts, minds, and spirits, before I tend the stuff. I don't want to be the shepherd who lost his sheep because he had too much to carry. I'm laying down my burden, all this stuff, and taking up the staff that will win me the unfading crown of glory.